Dispatches from the Poll Tax Rebellion

Catholic MP
John Battle revealed to the Catholic Herald this
week he is set to embark on a campaign of “creative resistance” against the
poll tax, which could involve refusing to pay.

Mr Battle, the Labour
MP for
Leeds West, said he would support local people who refused to pay the tax in
their efforts, and would join with them in refusing to pay the tax
voluntarily if they asked him to. Mr Battle’s stand against the poll tax
follows last week’s declaration by Jesuit head Michael Campbell-Johnson that
politicians should side with the poor (Catholic
Herald, October 14). “In the end,
the government can get the money out of you by deducting it from your income
but there’s a lot of scope to resist this law”, he said.

Mr Battle elaborated on his plans at a “Poll tax — no way!” meeting on
Wednesday night, organised by the
Independent Labour Party.

“There is a lot of space to fight this tax from the ground upwards”, he said.
Mr Battle spoke too at the meeting about the Housing Bill which is set to
become an act within weeks. “This should also be resisted. The government can
simply take over whole sections of cities from local authority control, and
we’re just not going to accept it. Tenants are going to refuse to co-operate
with government officials”, he said.

“Like with the poll tax, the law can be made to look an ass. There’s still a
long way to go before they start taking the money for the poll tax — it was
blasted through the House of Lords by wheeling in peers, despite the
opposition in the House of Commons. It’s unfair and it’s certainly not a
fait accompli that it will be enforced”, he stressed.

Mr Battle was applauded for his stand by fellow Catholic
MP Denis
Canavan, the Labour
MP for
Falkirk West, who has already been fined £50 for refusing to register for the
poll tax. The tax is due to be introduced in Scotland in
1989, a year before it is implemented in England
and Wales.

“We’ve tried every means to stop it, but the only way to defeat it is if
enough people like John Battle stand up and refuse to pay”, he told the
Catholic Herald.

Mr Canavan has refused to pay the fine he has received, and said the money
will have to be taken from him against his will.

However, Mr Battle suggested that a firm undertaking not to pay the tax was
not necessary at the stage. “What I don’t think I should do as a public
official is to encourage people to get into a situation where I’m all right
but they’re not”, he said. He believes the bureaucracy involved in the bill
will provide ample opportunity for resistance.

“There is a line in the bill at the moment, for instance, which concerns
registering for payment of the tax. It says ‘if no-one lives at this address,
please fill in that no-one lives here’. It’s ridiculous”, he said.

John Battle’s campaign has drawn criticism from other Labour
MPs,
however. Catholic Keith Vaz, Labour
MP for
Leicester East, voiced his concern to the Catholic
Herald.

“The only way to beat this poll tax is by a united campaign which must come
from a decision taken by the Party at a national level. Without that large
scale sort of action, people are not really in a position to take individual
action”, he said.

Vaz turned out not to be right about that. The Party floundered around, trying
to milk the controversy, while individuals organized at the grassroots level
in a civil disobedience campaign independent from Party leadership that proved
to be successful in defeating the tax.

A Halifax priest has said he will go to jail rather than pay the poll tax in
a public stance which mirrors the mounting national opposition to the planned
reform of local government finance.

Fr Peter Sheridan of
St Bernard’s Presbytery in
Boothtown, Halifax, is one of the first poll tax protestors to be fined for
his opposition to the tax. Calderdale Council fined him £50 for refusing to
complete a community charge registration form. He now faces a further £200
fine and ultimately a possible jail sentence.

“It’s an unfair and unjust tax and will place a burden on millions of people
who can ill afford to pay it,” said Fr Sheridan. “This is like a reversal of
the Robin Hood trend where the poor are being robbed to help the rich. It’s
ridiculous.”

Having worked with the Catholic Housing Aid Society
(CHAS),
Fr Sheridan stressed that
“this tax will cause homelessness, and will weigh heavily on the already
vulnerable in our society including the elderly, the handicapped and the
poor.”

Having talked to the local media and the national radio,
Fr Sheridan is hopeful that
other religious will follow his example in refusing to pay. “This is a
totally unChristian tax, and the government has most certainly failed the
people of Britain here,” he said.

“As yet the Church in England has not taken a public stance against this
tax”, said Sr Deirdre Duffy,
of the St Joseph of Peace Order
who is active in the social justice field. “However, at a grassroots level
there are many like Fr Peter
Sheridan who are opposed to this tax which will cause many to suffer,”
Sr Duffy said.

The poll tax will tax poor and rich alike at a consistent level, with no
means test, and will most certainly contribute to the rising poverty and
homelessness in Britain, Sr
Duffy said. “There is also a considerable amount of confusion among religious
about what orders will have to pay the tax,” she said. “There are some orders
who have property and will be liable for a noncommunity tax, which works out
higher than a poll tax, and many orders are exempt but they have not received
exemption forms,” Sr Duffy
said.

The Christian churches in Scotland have been united in their stance against
the Poll Tax, taking part in many public demonstrations against its
imposition in Scotland.

“Catholic social teaching stresses that those who are better off should be
responsible for those who are less well off,” said
Sr Kilpatrick of the Peace and
Justice Commission in Glasgow. “We have been opposed to this tax from the
start”.

There has been great opposition to the tax in Scotland not only because it
discriminates against the poor, but also because it was introduced into
Scotland first, and “it was using Scotland as a ‘guinea-pig’ trial for this
tax, and is coming from a government which is not supported in Scotland,”
said Sr Kilpatrick.

“We are also opposed to the centralisation of this tax, which militates
against the autonomy of the local authorities who are being bypassed and will
not control the allocation of the local tax money,”
Sr Kilpatrick said.

The churches in Scotland have opposed the poll tax on economical, political
and cultural grounds in Scotland “and we are determined to keep up our stance
against it,” she said.

“Hopefully we can now join with those who are protesting in Britain so that
we can protect those who will directly suffer as a result of this unfair
tax,” said Sr Kilpatrick.

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